Posts Tagged City slums

Development of Slums | Five elements lacking in Slums

The percentage of Development of Slums is always seen higher in developing countries. In developing countries, the major development takes place in cities, then towns. People from towns and villages surrounding the developing city start migrating the city.

Since they are people with very low income or no income at all, finding a place to live in is a challenge for them. This is the major reason of why slums develop in a developing city.

Slum in Mumbai, India. 55% of the population of Mumbai live in slums, which cover only 6% of the city's land. Slum growth rate in Mumbai is greater than the general urban growth rate

They use all the scrap and waste material for the construction of their homes that we discard. People building their huts on a land without a legal permission are also termed as slums. These are all illegal households which sooner or later are cleaned by the Government.

A slum area is always underdeveloped, unhygienic and lacks important elements that are required for a hygienic and healthy living. Eradication of Slums can be achieved by providing Low cost Housing for the people living in the unhygienic slum areas.

Five elements which slums lack:

Access to improved water

Access to improved sanitation

Security of tenure

Durability of housing

Sufficient housing Area

In this article, we are going to discuss these five elements which are lacking in the slum household making the living conditions harsh and difficult for people.

In the last few decades, there had been a tremendous growth in emerging countries like India, Brazil, Mexico and China. This had been mainly due to a rapid expansion in the manufacturing sector. Thus, there has been a massive migration of workers to cities and production centers. These new workers cannot afford housing. This is what gives rise to slums, as the homeless make temporary shelters which get transformed rapidly into semi-permanent housing colonies. People migrate to cities because the comparative poverty and hardship involved in their alternatives (ie. subsistence farming) is worse.

Dharavi Slums, Mumbai, India

According to UN-HABITAT, a slum is defined as a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. It is estimated that one billion humans live in shanty towns. One in every three people in the world will live in slums within 30 years unless governments control unprecedented urban growth, according to a UN report.